Originally posted on The Western Critic
People have been comparing the Russia-Ukraine situation with China and Taiwan. There are many similarities, but it’s not so much “a big authoritarian power vs a small democratic country”. Rather, the common factor is US-meddling and willingness to use Ukrainians and Taiwanese as cannon fodder in their attempt to maintain global hegemony.
Some brief background: The Chinese Civil War is an ongoing conflict between the PRC (mainland China) and the ROC (Taiwan). Both believe in the One-China Policy: that there is only one sovereign state under the name China and Taiwan is part of China.
The Communists forced the Nationalists to flee to Taiwan in 1949. The Nationalists set up government in Taipei and immediately imposed a brutal, murderous, martial law targeting leftists, dissidents, and intellectuals for the next 40 years called the White Terror, entirely supported by the US. The White Terror was implemented in the aftermath of an anti-government uprising that was brutally suppressed, resulting in the death of almost 30,000 people, known as the 228 massacre. The US supported the Nationalists throughout this brutal, repressive period and prevented the Communists from taking Taiwan, even going so far as to risk nuclear war during the Second Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958 (just more yellow people that would be killed as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Dwight D. Eisenhower with Chiang Kai-Shek in Taipei, 1960. Illustrating US support for brutal, dictatorial regimes, as long as they are anti- communist.
China-US relations warmed in 1972 under Nixon taking advantage of the Sino-Soviet split. The UN then recognized the PRC and the PRC reclaimed its permanent seat at the UN Security Council, replacing the ROC. This occurred with US approval.
China’s economy and stature steadily rised over the next 30-40 years. The standard of living and life expectancy of its billion-plus population improved dramatically. These changes were largely both accepted by the US, whose corporations benefited greatly from the economic growth that China powered, and unnoticed by it, since the US was preoccupied with the Cold War and, at the height of its unipolarity, numerous murderous ventures overseas (the Global War on Terrorism resulted in millions dead, 40 million displaced, and 8 trillion wasted according to the Costs of War Project out of Brown University).
But then Obama saw a potential threat (not a military one, but an economic peer competitor) in China, which would become unacceptable to the American global hegemon. Obama initiated the Pivot to Asia, Trump escalated the rhetoric and policies to contain China, and now, Biden is continuing the militarization of Taiwan (like Ukraine) and the diplomatic gesturing.
As late as 2015, at the Ma-Xi meeting, PRC-ROC relations were relatively warm and the 1992 Consensus (One China, different interpretations) was reaffirmed. The One China policy also happens to be official US policy, however their actions would say otherwise. China points out this duplicity on a regular basis.
It is China’s intention to reunite with Taiwan peacefully. 26% of Taiwan’s exports go to China and 21% of Taiwan’s imports come from China. For China, numbers are 2% and 6% respectively. China is much more important to the economy of Taiwan, than Taiwan is to China’s economy. The use of force would be the absolute last resort for China, but there is a redline: Taiwan declaring independence. Both sides have been perfectly content with the status quo, a tacit understanding to agree to disagree on the interpretation of One China.
But as always, the US is meddling. The unilateral player who meddled with Ukraine to provoke Putin to invade also has its hands in Cross-Strait relations. Putin’s redline was Ukraine’s joining of NATO. As of 2014, Ukraine was becoming a de facto NATO member and Putin made his move. Many in the West have remarked how valiantly the Ukrainians are fighting and how much trouble Putin is having, but imagine how much more trouble Putin would be having had he waited another year or two; the ethnic Russians of Donetsk & Luhansk would have been annihilated by the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. As always, US meddling all over the world continues to be a source of global conflict. This is the recurring, undeniable, & blatantly obvious theme that somehow goes unnoticed by the mainstream media and its viewers.
The West claims to stand for freedom and democracy. But time has shown that these claims only hold true when subservient countries submit to its unilateral rule. The reality is that the US leads the so-called “free world” in heinous crimes and acts of war all over the world and, with our unwavering support, all Americans are complicit.
Sources:
White Terror (Wikipedia Photos)
1972 Visit by Richard Nixon to China